Your theology is much more complicated than mine. Today is as Jesus said,

Luke 17:
[26] And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
[27] They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
[28] Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
[29] But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
[30] Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

The Deluge, and the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, took the world of their time by surprize. That shouldn't be happening today, because the Bible spells out pretty clearly, what is about to happen; yet Jesus told us that it would be the same nowadays as it was in the ancient times.

One "clearly" identified end-times character, at least in my eyes, is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, known in the book of Ezekiel as "Gog". I read about him almost every day, to see what he's up to. Also, "all nations", of Zech. 14:2, is personified as the "United Nations" of our day. "666" was the numerology equivalent of "Caesar Nero", which, by implication, was any Western world leader who persecuted the church. In John's day, it was Domitian, which explains why John wrote his name in code. In our time, it will probably be the US President; and I doubt it will be President Trump. At the moment, it looks as though the US is not the world's leader; we appear to be wounded unto death; but I believe we will recover from that wound in the coming years.

The False Prophet? The one who would not allow us to buy or sell, unless we had the mark of the beast, or the number of his name? That is apparently someone who will have control of whether or not people could buy or sell. Today, we have virtual currencies like Bitcoin keeping the sales and purchases of the masses on massive computer databases; and one by one, countries are converting FAST to cashless societies. The False Prophet will also be able to call fire from the sky, etc.; which, of course, most governments can do nowadays. Does the FP = "technology"? or is he one with the authority to control technology? As with the one who controls buying and selling, it seems in this case also, that the FP is to be some high mucky-muck in Washington, DC or New York, NY. At the moment, no other capital has the universal clout weilded by those places.

That's all happening, just as the Bible said it would; and it is happening fast; but the masses are either unbelieving or confused. Who's going to stop these things? The President of China? Putin? Merkel? Some Guru or Ayatollah or Calif? An NRA musketeer? Disney, Inc.? Bill Gates? Al Gore? Nobody's going to STOP these things; they will all happen, and they will happen soon. And neither do I see the Bible telling us we will get a "Get raptured out of jail free" card. We will all be there when it happens (provided we don't die first), just as Noah and Lot were right there, when God executed judgment in the past.

Nobody will stop these things. The nuclear war, described in Zechariah 14? We are working hard, to bring it about. The US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, France, Britain, Israel all have nuclear weapons and delivery systems; and other powers are waiting in the wings. These stockpiles are continually maintained and tweaked to keep them current; and the fingers on the trigger (such as Kim Jong Un's) are more insane and capricious than they have ever been. Again, nobody can stop it; the Day of Gloom, the Day of the Lord, is inevitable and fast approaching.

We cannot stop it. All we can do, is adjust our perspective, so we can face these things rationally and without fear. We preach the gospel, so that people can do just that.

Lately, I think we can do the world a great service, by reassuring them that the End is not about to come because of Donald Trump's presidency; and also to reassure them that it will not come because the repeal of Obamacare failed in Congress. The clouds will not turn to lead and fall on us, when some rock star or other celebrity dies. People need to know this, and we have the message that can reassure them. They all sense that gloom is coming; but they don't know when, or why. We do; and we can reassure them with our preaching.

God bless and keep you.

Shaolom shalom :-)

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".